


Making Up Memories

by abyssalUpwelling



Series: It's Always Sunny in the Systar System [2]
Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Benny is mentioned but doesn't show up, Broken Friendship, double agent, implied breakups, lying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyssalUpwelling/pseuds/abyssalUpwelling
Summary: The Classic Spacemen have an old teammate rejoin their space gang. To bad this Classic Spaceman is really a spy sent to ruin their lives!





	Making Up Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think about those Classic Space Astronauts a lot! So this story is built around all those Classic Space Astronauts that are Benny's friends and family. There's Lenny (Pink), Kenny (Yellow), Denny (Red), Jenny (White), and Penny (Black). This story focuses on Penny, who unlike the other ones was never mentioned in any sort of Lego Movie related lore. (Where as the other astronauts have stuff implied, Jenny and Denny being Benny's siblings, Lenny implied to be dating Benny, and Kenny implied to work with Benny in the 2nd movie.) My running theory is that Penny was a spy that defected from the Classic Space team awhile ago, and that's why she's never seen or talked about. This fic takes place a few weeks after Waking Up to 30%, with Rex appearing briefly.

**[Log Date June 16 2019]**

**[User ID: XXXXXX21]**

After years of neglect the United Space Federation, they have started to give attention back to the Classic Space Organization. This seems to have come about after the leader of the Systar System made contact with the group claiming they had untapped potential. Now over the course of the last few months the group has made unrivaled discoveries in the science community. I’ve seen reports of them gathering previously unattainable materials, making breakthrough advancements in spaceship technology, and they’ve even obtained an Octan-Government sponsored AI development program that blows everything Blacktron has worked on out of the water. It seems inevitable that the _Managers_ are going to want access to all these resources.

\--

**[Log Date June 17 2019]**

Well guess who was [REDACTED] right. I’ve been selected to go ‘undercover’ to the Classic Space organization. The _Managers_ say it’s because of my high performance record and promised potential. Which that compliment would mean more if they didn’t bleach the personality of almost every other employee here. But I know the real reason they’re sending me in. It’s because I used to work there. They always exploit the past. But I can’t dwell on that so I’m gonna go get briefed and hopefully find out that all my previous coworkers have moved on to different jobs.

\--

**[Log Date June 18 2019]**

They all [REDACTED] still work there. I mean like why??? Oh [REDACTED] how can anybody be that stuck in the past they can’t move on, who keeps the same job for that many years? This isn’t even bringing up how they should be dead. They were all [REDACTED] during the harshest times in history, at least one of them should have been killed by now, those [REDACTED] couldn’t lie undercover for 8 years. I mean. I guess they just got lucky. Whatever man, I gotta go figure out how I plan to deal with them.

\--

**[Electronic Date System June 19 1998]**

Hello digital word processing unit, I have been told that my computer’s date is not accurate. I will try to get Risk to fix it later today. In other news, I have received an update saying the Classic Space team is receiving a new member!!! We’ve really haven’t had this happen since those green guys joined, and those two are like never even seen, so this is a chance to make a new friend I’m so excited!!! I haven’t been able to pull up any records on them yet, but I’ll keep trying!!! I can’t wait to share the news with the rest of the crew. Signing off Jenny Blue Chu.

**[Electronic Date System June 19 1998]**

Hello digital word processing unit, sorry to make another entry so soon, but I discovered some bad news. Apparently the new member is going to Penny. Apparently she’s ‘defected’ from Blacktron, and is looking to start over. But screw her, why does she have to start over here? Can’t she go to like Futron or the Space Police? I don’t even know how to break this to the rest of the team. Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe she’ll change her mind and not show up and all my problems can be avoided. Signing off, Jenny Blue Chu.

\---

**[Present Day]**

Penny was waiting outside the main tower of the United Space Federation’s headquarters. Tapping her foot impatiently on the concrete as she grips her arm, going over her game plan in her head. _Okay keep it simple_ , Penny thinks to herself, _remember the water works, just do some crocodile tears and these idiots be all over you. There’s no way they they’ve gained any brain cells in the last few years_. Penny pulls out her phone and checks the time, the crew was supposed to send someone to bring her to base by now. Not like she could exactly build her own spaceship to fly there.

She looks up to the night sky, not enjoying how the silence of the night giving an ominous tone. _I hope they send Denny to pick me up, they’re like the most tolerable one of the group_. Penny’s mind started to wander, thinking about the rest of the crew, in a best case scenario she would have minimal communications with them and would be done with this mission in a few weeks. Denny she could deal with, the sarcastic prankster was easy enough to get along with, Kenny the sad man of the group was usually so alone he didn’t care what kind of company he had, Lenny was a cry baby from years of bullying, but as long as she didn’t make him experience any negative emotions there shouldn’t be a problem, Benny of course would be annoying to deal with, but he wouldn’t start any problems. But then there’s Jenny. Jenny could cause serious problems. And it’s not just because of Penny’s own complicated feelings on the spacegal, Jenny had a tendency to hold onto to grudges. Perhaps it would be best if Penny just didn’t interact with her for the entire duration of her mission. 

As soon as Penny had come to this arrangement, she see’s a chrome ship fly down not to far from her. And out pops an astronaut in rainbow gear and fluffy pink hair. She tilts her head in confusion, the mission reports didn’t say anything about a new member like this sure. Maybe the space crew had some sort of unpaid intern. Penny makes a mental note to look up this person once on the base, can’t have any unaccounted variables.

The person quickly floats over to her, and Penny instinctively reaches out a hand to shake, “greetings I am Penny Black Jack, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

The person gives her a smirk after she said this, her hands on her hips. It was here Penny really got to see them, and oh gosh Penny, thinks to herself, they’re kind of hot. 

And then person takes the hand and replies in a voice that just absolutely breaks Penny, “oh you’re going to pretend we’ve never met before, real mature Penny.”

Penny is just frozen right now, looking at Jenny, who was just unrecognizable. She then looked down their shaking hands, Jenny’s grasp so tight it was starting to cut off blood circulation to Penny’s hand.

“What- how, when-”

“Oh sorry did the hair throw you off, yeah dying hair is all the rage nowadays, or is it the outfit, sorry I know how important it is to follow the instructions for you, but I just got out of a party with my girlfriend, uh General Mayhem, second in command of the Systar army, and I didn’t have time to change into my work gear.”

Jenny’s grasp was still tight on Penny’s hand, and Penny was beginning to feel the sweat drip inside of her helmet.

This didn't seem right. This couldn't be right. Penny's mind was running 50 miles trying to connect the dots. This was Jenny? Jenny has gotten hot?? She had a new girlfriend??? A powerful influential girlfriend???? She had her life together????? This wasn't how it was supposed to go, this isn't- 

In all fairness, Jenny had shown up to pick Penny up in her Systar outfit on purpose. She wanted to rub it in that she had her life together, but she didn't plan on making Penny pass out 2 minutes into meeting her.

So now Jenny is standing above an unconscious astronaut, and sort of lazily drags her into her spaceship. She still had her doubts about Penny joining the crew, but seeing her pass out because she was so shocked that her ex had a happy new life did make her seem like not that big of a threat. Jenny sets her down in a chair and buckles her up, before walking over to the controls. She let out a sigh, she knew she needed to tell the rest of the crew Penny was rejoining them, but she was scared of what everyone would say. Maybe it's a tomorrow problem, she thinks to herself.

\---

**[Several Years Ago]**

Jenny was hammering some band posters up in her room, as Penny laid on her bed reading a newspaper. 

Jenny put up the last one and floated over to Penny, "I got the last of your band posters up."

Penny looks up from the paper and leans in to kiss Jenny's helmet, "thanks babe."

Jenny looks down to the paper Penny had been reading, "anything new going on in the world."

Penny waves her hand nonchalantly, "oh you know popular sports team won a game, there's a new portable music device on development, and President Business is pushing to illegalize Master Builders."

Jenny drops her hammer, the tool clattering against the steel floor, "he’s what?"

Penny cocks an eyebrow, "the guy is getting support from like 80 percent of politicians to start locking them up, cause he's making good points. Master Builders are a danger to us normal folks, and with their agendas now a day's they're trying to force their way of life onto kids, which is really fucked up."

Jenny is giving Penny an unbelievable look, but Penny continues, "what you're not buying into that stuff that Master Builders are equal to us, right?"

"Penny I'm a Master Builder."

Penny bolts up, dropping the newspaper on the floor next to the hammer, "is that supposed to be a joke? Cause you know you’re really bad at telling jokes."

"Penny I've been a Master Builder since I was a kid, how do you not know, it's how I'm able to engineer spaceships so fast."

Penny is slowly walking towards to door now, "do the others know this, that they're working with a _Master Builder._ "

"Penny, they're Master Builders too."

"They, they can't be-"

"Penny calm down," Jenny reaches over to place her hand on her shoulder.

But Penny just slaps it off, "don't fucking touch me."

Jenny steps back, her face showing an unreadable emotion, and she just stares in silence as Penny storms off.

\---

**[Present Day]**

Penny wakes up on a made bed in a tidy little room. She was surprised to see Jenny standing in the room, who looks pretty bored as she types on her phone.

 

Penny lets out a small cough to get Jenny's attention, to which Jenny responds by looking up from her phone, "oh good you're not dead."

"Did you, carry me here?" Penny asked cautiously, not seeing anyone else in the room.

"Yeah, so if you're feeling up to it I can give you your briefing in the morning around 9:00am and get you all situated on your new position."

Penny looks up at Jenny, and without even thinking just says, "I'm sorry."

Jenny doesn't really know what to do with that statement, so instead of responding to it she just goes over to a container, picks it up, and hands it to Penny.

"It's all your old band posters, you never came back for them after you left, and I figured you might want to decorate this place."

Penny looks down to the box and then back to Jenny. Maybe Jenny was still naive as she was back then. 

"Well I hope you can enjoy yourself here, really fit in," Jenny starts in her annoyingly optimistic tone, "because you know I would really hate for us to reconnect after all these years only for you to want to hurt us. Because if something like that happened geeze I don't even know," her tone while still sickeningly sweet started to get more drawn out with darker intentions, "I might have to erase your very existence. Oh, have I mentioned my strides into studying the time space continuum, really impressive stuff, I bet your former employees would have loved to have something like that in their databanks. Wouldn't they?"

"I wouldn't know, I wasn't that high up in the company," Penny lies. Well sort of lies, she was high up, but the mission reports hadn’t brought up anything on time space manipulation research.

"Oh please Penny, you worked there like what, 30 years? And never even got high enough to learn what was in their databanks? For a spy you need to work on your lying skills."

Penny laughed, "c'mon, me a spy? Doesn't a spy require people to trust you?"

But Jenny doesn't laugh, she's about to say something, when she hears a knock on the door, followed by someone speaking in a deep voice, "Jenny can we leave yet, this space station is boring and the new episode of Alien Life sitcom is gonna be on in thirty minutes."

Penny is sitting there, horrified, at that voice, but Jenny hasn't seemed to notice her reaction, she simply heads to the door to open to what appears to be a man in a dark blue space suit 

Before Jenny addresses him, Jenny introduces the two, "hey Risk this is Penny, she's a former employee that's been rehired, and Penny this is Rex Risk-Man, he's a ghost of an archeology professor, at least that’s what he’s telling me."

Penny searches for her voice, and tries to ask calmly, "does he work here?"

Jenny laughs, "oh what, no. Well he's been helping with research on the space between universes and what happens when a person gets stuck there, but he's just a friend that's also my roommate."

"Okay can you stop talking so we can get back and watch TV?" Risk was started to get impatient. Not to say he wasn't already impatient, he was, but he was starting to get even more impatient.

"Yeah okay, see you tomorrow Penny!" And with a wave Jenny closes the door to Penny's room. And Penny falls to the floor, her hands on her head.

_That masked man was without a doubt Rex Dangervest, he even had the gosh darn logo on his helmet. That was **the** Rex Dangervest, who had for the last few months ruthlessly fighting against all the competent united space organizations. He had acted like it was some sort of game, training he would call it, scary, emotionless, tactical, everyone was pretty sure he was some sort of defected Blacktron member, he fit all the qualities. But then he disappeared, his attacks, raids, violent messages had come to a halt, and nobody was really sure why, most figured he had finally finished the training he was after. Others figured someone had finally managed to kill the asshole. But no, the real answer was that he just fucked off and went to live on some nobody's couch. _

Penny could not even begin to fathom how Jenny had become friends with this guy. So instead of dealing with that mental load she just popped a couple painkillers and passed out on the floor.

\---

**[Several Years Ago]**

"We're here to offer you a lucrative business opportunity," says the first voice.

"A once in a lifetime opportunity," says the second.

Penny is in a darkly lit room, sitting in front of two men in dark suits, looking over the papers they had given her. 

But she bit her lip, "I don't know if I can take this job," while she had never been a high standing moral person, even this seemed to cross the line, they wanted her to basically jeopardize the entire integrity of the Space Organization.

"Oh she seems a little nervous doesn't she, maybe she doesn't even realize the Classic Space Organization is about to be replaced," says the first voice.

"Well maybe she doesn't realize they had planned obsolescence in their equipment," said the second.

She gave them both skeptical looks, "Classic Space isn't going anywhere, we're the only people capable of tackling these long distance space missions."

"Maybe you need to see these files," says the first voice.

"It might change your mind," says the second.

Penny snatches the folders away and reads over them, a shocking realization hitting her. Inside there were numerous documents calling for the next stage of the space wave, a new organization with funding and resources that blew classic space out of the water by a mile. And entirely staffed with new recruits.

"How have I not heard anything about this," rage was building in her voice.

"Your current crew is viewed as unstable," says the first voice.

"The government fears their unorthodox lifestyles will harm the organization's reputation."

"But I'm not like them!" Penny yells out, her voice echoing off the walls of the room.

"We know that," says the first voice.

"That's why we're offering you a way out before you lose everything."

Penny looks down to the file, and then back to the two men, "you guys offer full protection for me if I do this right, the government is going to definitely want to arrest me."

"Of course," says the first voice.

"But you will have to do a simple task to prove you're loyal to our cause first," says the second.

"Just stage a small accident," says the first one.

"Perhaps when the others are arguing take remote control of the ship and have it steer off course," says the second.

Penny takes a deep breath, and replies, "I'll do it."

\---

**[Present Day]**

Penny wakes up groggy and with a stiff back, probably why she shouldn't sleep on the floor. But she pays it no mind and goes to gather her new issued spacesuit. A pitch black uniform with gold worn off the planet emblem. Holding it in her arms she wonders if it's her old one, but she shook her head at that idea. “Jenny probably burned it the minute you walked out that door,” she said to herself. She gets into the suit, and then reaches for the helmet, stopping for a moment when she realizes it wasn’t a standard issue 1980's helmet, but a more recent model. Which was good since 1980's ones were prone to constant oxygen leak problems.

Penny heads out of her room and down the hall to the conference area with the intention of seeing getting coffee and getting situated in a daily routine. As she walks down the hall she absentmindedly passes a pink astronaut, who without thinking she waves and says, "hey Lenny,".

Lenny, looking down at his phone, glances up and says, “hello,” before the sudden realization kicked in, and his jolted up in confusion, looking like he’d seen a ghost, “wait, Penny??”

The mysterious astronaut curses at herself for not just ignoring him before taking a deep breath and turning around to face him, putting on a fake smile, “oh hey there Lenny, long time no see, you still uh,” she pauses, trying to think of something she could say to him, trying to rack her brains of his qualities. She knew he likes to cry, not talk about his high school experience, and what was that last thing, oh right, “you still crushing on Benny?” She says with a smirk. The several years she had known Lenny, the guy had the most massive crush imaginable on the blue astronaut, but he was always too deathly afraid to act on it, and being the person he was, he probably never would make a movie. At least from Penny’s point of view.

Lenny gives her a strange look, putting his phone away, as he places his hands on his hips, “No. actually,” he’s start off, making Penny confused, “he’s my boyfriend now, we’ve been dating for two months!” 

Penny lets out a gasp, that she quickly pretends is just a cough, before trying to regain her lost momentum in the conversation, “first Jenny, and now you, next you’re going to be telling me Ken is dating someone.”

“He is too.”

“WHAT,” Penny voice comes out loud in surprise, everything about these guys was catching her off guard, she starts to look around, trying to see if there was somewhere for her to sit while she processed this, but with no chairs in sight she was resigned to placing her head into her hands, as she spoke aloud again, “this just isn’t adding up, how are you all moving on with your livesm being happy?”

The pink astronaut looks kind of hurt by that statement, “w-hat do you mean? Are we not supposed to be?”

 _Of course not_ , Penny thinks to herself, _you guys are supposed to be hurt, broken, and obsolete. You guys weren’t supposed to be the successful ones, I was, I was supposed to be the only good thing to ever come out of the Classic Space program._

But she doesn’t say that, she raises her head from her hands to regain her composure, she wasn’t here to have complicated feelings about people she once considered her family that she had abandoned in the name of fame and fortune. She was just here to do another mission.

 _“_ No, it’s just, I guess I’ve been so sad since I left, I thought everyone else would be sad too. Kind of selfish to think like that, sorry, it’s great to see you all happy now though.”

“I suppose so,” Lenny says in way that almost makes it seem like he can tell that she isn’t telling the whole truth there, but he doesn’t bring it up, “I hope we can make you happy again.” The astronaut adjusts his helmet, as he looked around the hallway, “we should catch up sometime.”

“We really should,” Penny says, giving a fake smile, “since I’ll be working for the foreseeable future and all.” _She stops after she says that, thinking to herself, does he know I’m working here, he seemed kind of shocked when he saw me, was Jenny hiding the fact I was coming back? That does seem like something she would do._ “You did know I’m starting to work here right? The Space Federation helped me escape Blacktron in turn for me giving over all the information I learned in my time there, they allowed me to have my old position back at Classic Space back.” 

She sort of mentally does a facepalm after she said that, she probably could’ve gotten away without mentioning she worked for Blacktron in front of him. People probably weren’t going to be happy to learn that she used to work for an evil organization known for committing atrocities across the galaxy. And it might also hurt her chances on gaining anyone’s trust while she was here. 

He responds, “Blacktron, hm..? See Owenny and Fenny?” Lenny chuckles emptily, his eyes almost have a glaze over them, before they revert back to normal, and he says, “sorry, that was really rude, anyway it’s doo you’re back!”

Penny blinks a few times as she processes what Lenny just said, “uh I those two guys used to work there, but they were killed in that rogue alien atta----” Penny stops talking for a moment as a crazy thought passes through her head. A thought saying that Lenny was asking because he was that killer emotionless alien that caused the attack. But she quickly throws that thought out the window, of course Lenny couldn’t be a murderer, the guy she knew couldn’t hurt a fly if he tried, “the attack,” she continues, as if she hasn’t just stopped talking for 30 seconds, “but I think they were already brain bleached for awhile by that point, so it’s not like anyone missed them,” she gives a hollow laugh at the end of that statement, expecting Lenny to give the same, but then she remembers she’s no longer on her normal base right now, were everyone told dark jokes and were overall depressed most of the time. “Right,” she says, “that joke probably doesn’t make much sense here, well” she clasps her hands together trying to keep the fake happy mood up, “it’s good to be back, be around normal-” she backtracks herself on that statement, “be around nice people again.”

“Yeah,” Lenny gives a pause after that statement, trying to find something to talk about, “you want to meet the others?”

Penny chuckles at that, “if they want to be around me. Can’t blame them if they aren’t super thrilled to have me back, I didn’t exactly leave everyone on good terms.”

\---

[Several years Ago]

“What are you doing?” Jenny leans in the doorway of Penny’s room, as Penny continues to pack a small bag and sling it over her shoulder.

“I’m leaving,” penny gives as a simple answer.

“You, you can’t just leave.”

“Well it’s not like I want to stay with you _master builders_.”

Jenny squints at the way she says that word, but at this point Penny had start to feel numb to most things, so she ignores it, but Jenny is starting to get pissed, “I mean you can’t leave because you broke several of the Space Federation’s Laws, you’re under serious probations right now.”

Penny raises an eyebrow, “oh so you’re just going to let me go into questioning, where I’ll have to tell them everything about my team, that includes letting the government know you’re all a bunch of dangerous master builders you know.”

Jenny is staring daggers at Penny as she continues, “you know I hear the President is starting to lock them up, torturing them until their will is so broken that they’re forces to create under his instructions. I really wouldn’t want to see you end up somewhere like that.”

“Are you, trying to black mail us?”

“Well in layman terms, yes, yes I am. So you can either report me for all the illegal things I’ve done, and watch you and your family get hauled off to prison, or you can let me go and never see me again.”

Jenny floats closer to Penny, and Penny unintentional gulps, not because she’s nervous, but because she still has some hang ups for the accident she caused a few years back. She hadn’t realized how much it would screw everyone up. Lenny was an emotional mess, Denny was acting so distant they barely talked to anyone, Kenny had picked up drinking again, Jenny could no longer control her gravity powers, and Benny… It was best to not think about how it effected Benny. Sure these guys were Master Builders, but they were still people, people that she hurt for selfish reasons, that she could never apologize for. It would be better if she just disappeared and they never had to deal with her again. 

“Fine,” Jenny says, getting a shocked look from Penny “but you better keep to that promise, cause if I do ever see you again, I will not hesitate to throw you out of the airlock.”

\---

[Present Day] 

“Right,” Lenny responds, Penny had left several years ago under the allegations she was selling information to other space organizations. That and her vocal uncomfortableness of working so close to so many Master Builders. That’s pretty much all he knew, there was more to the story there but Jenny never wanted to talk about it, so the rest of space crew was mostly left in the dark as to why exactly Penny left, “anyways, you want us to clear your office space? Renovate it for you?”

Penny, takes a second to realize that Jenny actually did bother to tell him that she had been rejoining the crew, otherwise why would he bring up the office space. Either that or he’s just asking if she wants her old office space back. But she decides for the purposes of her mission it doesn’t really matter, so she rolls her eyes and responds, “depends, is the office still filled with obsolete tack 1980’s technology?”

Lenny looks almost hurt by that acquisition, “Penny, we use technology that’s not even been discovered yet.”

“If it hasn’t been discovered yet how do you use it?”

“No I mean, we discovered and developed it, see,” he pulls out a early 2000’s era cell phone, “hold this for me.” Penny takes the phone, and Lenny would suddenly take out a laser gun, “make sure your visor’s on,” he says as he charges up the gun, and sends a blast into the phone as it absorbs the energy. The phone suddenly lights up and begins to play a soft ringtone. 

“We figured out to make laser guns that fix technology,” Lenny boasts, “the rest of Home doesn’t know how to do that.”

Penny is now fully focuses on the laser gun her eyes scanning every inch of it, "have you patented it yet, is it resellable, any sort of dangerous lasting effects of it, you said we figured it out, who was on the team that developed it, how recently have you made, do you have more things like this?"

“Yes, the paperwork is going through, no, Kenny and I figured it out, a few months ago, and yes, though...um, I can't show it to you,” he'd wink, teasing her.

Somewhere, on the other side of the ship at the exact moment, Benny looked up from the spaceship, feeling he should tell Lenny to watch himself for some reason...

Penny had no idea how to interpret that wink, "Well I hope you can show it to me eventually, I learned a lot over at Blacktron that might be able to help you with your cutting edge technology."

“Eventually yeah,” he says putting away the laser gun.

Penny watches as he puts it away, his report file she read before the mission had mentioned an increase production of laser gun based technology, so she asks, "what's with you with laser guns anyway, you seem really into them.”

Lenny tilts his head and scrunched his eyebrows, “what are you talking about, I only showed you this once.”

“Oh well,” Penny was trying to find a way to talk about knowing his recent inventions without bringing up the fact she had read a mission report about him while preparing for this mission, “Jenny mentioned something about you being obsessed with them when she brought me over yesterday, ah you know Jenny always saying words.” Dear Man Upstairs, she was better than this what’s being around her old friends that’s screwing with her brain. She contemplated on that for a second before realizing that she’s feeling like an outsider intruding on their happy little world. And that feeling is making her think about old memories, almost making her regret leaving this life behind. Almost.

“I'm not obsessed with them,” he looked offended, “even if I was, it’s not like I’m hurting people with them, am I?”

"Yeah Lenny Pink Ink, hurting someone, that's a joke," she smiles at that, "so what does my office space look like?"

“I'm glad you asked!” He seems oddly enthusiastic, Lenny led her to the room, opening the door. And it was revealed to be, a storage space. Boxes covering every square inch, and as Penny tried to peer into the room a stack fell on her.

"Ack," is the sound Penny makes as the boxes send her crashing to the ground, "you guys really know how to treat a lady."

“Why didn't you move out the way?” Lenny would seem genuinely confused offering her an apology as he moved the boxes off of her.

"I'm not some intergalactic space warrior, I'm a tactical mission expert with experience in control room management, I don't exactly have the reflexes of-" she stops herself from saying Master Builder, "of you and the rest of the crew."

As Lenny moves the last of the boxes off she pulls herself up and lightly brushes the dust off her suit, “you guys didn’t bother to clean this up a little though?”

“Benny always puts stuff in here, I'm sorry…” He'd move boxes of random stuff out of the way, leading to the remnants of Penny's office. “We left your desktop here just in case you did come back.”

Penny follows him, and asks in a soft voice, "You guys thought I'd come back?"

Lenny seems puzzled by her question, “Well...yeah. You're still our friend, right..?

Penny shakes her head at his response, "I am, I just thought you wouldn't want to be friends with someone like me."

Lenny just sort of ignores her statement there, and gestures to the back of the room, “well, your stuff is still in there. We just need to renovate it to the latest tech.”

"How long do you'll think that'll take?"

The pink astronaut gives a shrug, “not too long, the bots can help fix that, give it a few hours.”

He taps his fingers on the edge of a box trying to find something to say, “you want to meet the others while you're here? I'll call you back when your space is finished. I can text them to see if they’re available.”

The pink astronaut whips out his phone and sends a message to Kenny, ‘hey head to storage dude’.

Kenny, who was in the food supply room, trying to find some spare freeze-dried cheese to make into space mac n cheese, when he gets a message from Lenny. 

He shrugs at the text and heads to the storage room, seeing Penny standing Lenny. He continues walking towards Lenny, until something clicks in his head, he swivels to get a good look at the new astronaut to make sure he was seeing right, “Penny?”

Penny seems kind of surprised hearing his voice, he sounded different, was it more mature, was there less slur in his words, she couldn’t place her finger on it, and just ended up ignoring it, in an effort to try and make conversation, "oh hey Kenny, long time no see. You uh, still making mac n cheese?"

"I-Is that even- Wh??" Words and phrases came out of his mouth, but almost all of it was unintelligable, "yeeeeeeeeeeno, yeah? Yes."

Lenny sends the two out of Penny’s office slash storage room, saying he was gonna clear it out while they caught up. Leaving Kenny alone with his former friend.

Penny waves bye to Lenny, and turns to Kenny, noting that it doesn’t seem like Kenny hasn’t changed a whole lot in the last few years, so that’s good, no need to reevaluate social interactions with him. So she opens a channel communication with him, “so I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but I’m back! I’m working here notw again, so I’ll be seeing a lot of you.”

“That’s,” Kenny pauses, the gears in his brain trying to figure out the proper way to react to see old coworker who disappeared without a trace a ton of years ago, eventually his brain is able to figure out a strong output, “great? Sorry it’s just- yeah you’re back! That’s great.” 

If it wasn’t obvious, Kenny is pretty confused right now.

Penny was kind of surprised by this, so far everyone had been taking her return in a good mood. She hadn’t been expecting this, this was almost too easy, something was going to catch her up, but she was a gambling women, so she decided to see how far she could push her luck today, "Well it's great to be back, Lenny was just telling me about a super cool lazer gun you helped him build, do you guys have an engineering lab I could get a tour of on the base?"

He looked at her, squinting. _Specific,_ he thought to himself. "Yeah, we do..." Kenny would say this slowly. "Why? Need something there?"

She waves her hand, trying to not act like she’s almost vibrating in excitement to go to the lab, "well I've been added to the team as a research assistant, so getting acquainted with the work space would be good, but if you don't want me helping in the engineering lab, I could go to the robotics lab, medbay, or the AI development area."

Kenny shook his head, "No man, let's just get to engineering lab or .. whatever." He did a little stretch before starting to move towards the lab, "It's been... A while, Penny. Wonder where you've been?" 

He'd laugh to himself, "Probably off doing some crazy stuff. Don't tell me that in all that time you were out you didn't get hooked up with anybody?"

She lets out a hollow laugh, "my last job didn't offer a lot of free time to try and make personal connections,” sure Blacktron offers money and power, but they really frown on interpersonal relationships. A slight drawback from working at the organization, but no workplace is perfect, “but I've heard the whole space crew is dating now. You got together with Denny right, I mean what are the odds that Denny would ever be able to find love."

Kenny’s face went red, "Y-Yeah... I'm dating 'em. But I'm sure someone will grow to love you too, Penny. And if anything, I think it's better to live without anybody. Although love is great, it comes with a lot of-" Kenny fake-coughed, because he knew he was rambling. "Sorry. Uhhhhh, anyways, let's ... go?"

She steps back to wave him forward, "let's"

Kenny walked, absentmindedly trying to find the pockets in his clothes out of habit but couldn't find them.

Penny sees Kenny struggling with his outfit "everything okay there pal?"

"Its ... gu-” he was about to say ‘it’s gucci’ but quickly decided against that idea, perhaps to not let Penny discover his personality had become infected with memes since she had been gone, “fine."

The two approach the lab, the door awaiting someone to input a security code to enter

Kenny practically slapped on the code, he was careless as he was stupid.

"Soooo, here? It is? Yeah. Engineering lab."

The lab is filled with all sorts of eye catching technology yet to be released for public consumption.

Penny was zooming around the room, touching everything picking stuff up examining it, a lot of oohs and ahhs were said until she caught herself, turned around to face kenny and pretended she didn't just have a freak out moment, "well this place looks cool, you got any favorite inventions in here?

Kenny wants to say the Mac-N-Cheeser 3000, but that was sort of a joke invention he made, so he just answers, "not really...?" He looked to his side. "There was one that was SUPPOSED to be here, I blew it up though." He grinned.

She lets out a genuine chuckle at that comment, _same old idiots,_ she thinks, as she continues to scan over all the equipment. Well things were going fantastic so far, so she decided to see if she could get even deeper down this rabbit hole, "do you keep all the inventions here cataloged? Like in a database or a paper system?"

Kenny nodded. "It should be somewhere. Isn't there like a, uhm..." He walked backwards for a bit, "There should be a filing... Thingy?" There was an overfilled filing cabinet to his left, that he seemed to be having trouble finding.

“You should be more careful with keeping track of these things, how would you know if one went missing?"

Lenny walks into the lab, addressing Penny, “Hey, um, Penny...your room is…” Lenny notices her with Kenny, who is stumbling around the room trying to find a filing cabinet that’s in plain sight, “Kenny, what are you doing?”

He looked over. "What do you mean, 'what am I doing'? You say that as if you caught us making out in a bathroom stall."

"Which wouldn't happen," Penny felt the need to point out.

"Penny asked if there's some sort of data thingy dinopopsickjangers and-" He paused to register Penny's comment, "- I'm only telling her where it is."

“Ah, alright,” Lenny says crossing his arms.

 _Could it be Lenny doesn't trust me here,_ Penny thinks, but she decides not to worry about that right now, "Just getting acquainted with my new work space, Kenny was just telling me about how he blew something up."

“Right,” Lenny says to that, giving a glare to Kenny.

Kenny grinned, unaware of the glares he was receiving from his friend. "I took it and I blew it up, there was fire and I started laughing, I screamed, 'FIRE IN THE PIT!' and I rescued myself from the burning flames of- Okay, but what do you need specifically from that file doddiebixchugfindurdle? Like, what's it- Information on the squad, incidents, spaceships, materials, tasks, blablablah-?"

Lenny looks exasperated at this point, “It's a filing cabinet, oh my goodness.”

"Lenny is right it's a filing cabinet,” Penny adds on, "but I don't need anything from it, I was just wondering how you keep track of so many inventions."

"We just do!” Kenny says with enthusiasm. And then he turns his head to Lenny, offering an apology, “thanks for remembering the name of that thing.”

Kenny then focuses back on Penny continues, "but is there something specific you want me to show you, I mean," he took out the laser gun he had given Lenny, "There's this beautiful thing!"

He smiled, "Fun to make, maybe you might want to make it yourself or.. whatever. Simple enough, actually, you just-" Kenny fake coughed again.

Penny notices the cough, and tries to build conversation off it, "Do you need some cough syrup, or maybe some whiskey for that cough?"

He looked at her. Just stared at her.

The double agent astronaut, was of course unaware that Kenny was a recovering alcoholic, that he had been working hard to move past his substance addiction. As far as she was aware he was still drinking himself to sleep every night. 

"Uh, Home to Kenny, you okay there bud?" She says trying to get him to respond. 

Lenny sensing the unspoken tension of the room tries to shift the topic, “hhhow about we just...look at other inventions? Heh…” He'd hold Kenny's arm. “I'm sorry.” he'd whisper to him.

Kenny would give a blink before returning to his normal state, "I mean, unless you want to look at something else?"

"Nah inventions are cool to look at," she says starting to get excited again.

Again, Kenny fumbled with his clothes in search of pockets. "Rad. Okay, well..." What else was there to show her? "Whiiich one do you like?"

Lenny rolled his eyes as he turned to kenny, “your pockets are here,” he'd place his arms to show pockets where the suit's belt was.

"Well what about that-" Penny points to a large mechanical looking machine with a paper sign taped to it that read 'secret government work don't touch this Kenny i stg -Jenny'(edited)

"Ooooo, that? I can't touch that." He'd put his hands in the pockets Lenny helped him discover. "I don't think any of us can," Kenny said, in a more serious tone. "'Cept for Jenny or Lenny maybe. Those two have actual brain cells."

Lenny looks over to that machine, “Oh, that's the machine we made to test a theory...

It's dangerous to go into so far, so don't.” He'd emphasize the last word.

"Can I get any hints as to what is," she prodded, "Like is it to connect to other timelines or something?"

“Something like that.” Lenny became suspicious. “Why are you asking?”

Penny shrugged, not actually lying for once as she responded, "Jenny mentioned erasing my existence if I did anything to hurt you guys, saying she had some sort of time space continuum research going on, so I figured that's part of it,” she pauses reflecting on Jenny’s statement, "I think Jenny isn't being as open to having me back as you two are."

“What? That's odd for Jenny to say,” Lenny was sure he’s never heard Jenny say a mean thing in her life before.

Meanwhile while that conversation was happening Kenny came back from spacing out, “what’s odd for Jenny to say?”

"It's nothing just Jenny probably holding a grudge since the break up."

“Oh, right.” Lenny remembered the two of them dated for awhile. And then had a nasty breakup that Jenny would never give the details of, Lenny shrugs as he tells his friend, “nothing you need to worry about, Kenny.”

It was at that moment Jenny floats into the lab, giving a relieved sigh, as she approached the bunch.

“I’ve been looking all over for you Penny, you were supposed to meet me in the conference room,” she looks over to Kenny and Lenny biting her lip a bit, “but I see you were just catching up with Kenny and Lenny, so no harm there.” 

“Jenny I have some questions-” Kenny starts but is cut off as Jenny grabs Penny’s arm and starts dragging her out.

“Sorry Kenny I gotta get started on showing this rookie the basics, I’ll talk to you later.”

The automatic door slams close as Jenny and Penny make their way down the hallway.

“So first day and you’re already scouting out the engineering lab, find anything good enough to steal.”

Penny rolls her eyes, “I’m not here to steal anything.”

“Yeah and you’re a trustworthy person, anyway I need to show you your office,” Jenny says pulling open the door to the room, expecting it be covered in boxes, only to be surprised that it’s been fully cleaned and refurbished, “when did this happen?”

“Oh Lenny fixed up my office for me,” Penny places her hands on her hips, “nice guy, if I rolled that way and maybe if he wasn’t dating Benny I could-”

Jenny punches her in the arm before she finishes that sentence, “you can feel free to not talk as much as you like, it will make your brief time here much more manageable for me.”

“So what’s gonna be my first official job,” Penny says heading over to her computer.

“Set up an ask blog.”

“Wait what?” Penny looks over to Jenny to give a confused look.

Jenny just shrugs, “everyone else has one, and it will make it easy for me to keep tabs on you, so get to it.”

And with that Jenny leaves the room, leaving Penny to frantically search the internet for what an ask blog is.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey check out the blog here: ask-a-classic-astronaut.tumblr.com


End file.
